Supreme Court rules the term sex refers to 'biological women'

[everythingthelighttouches]

Finally.

There is no “triumph” for me.

i am delighted though.
I feel relief that this reasonable request for clarity has been heard.

The judge also said “the law still gives trans people protection against discrimination.”

As it should do. No one ever argued otherwise.

My thoughts exactly. Next we’ll be having to have legislation that the earth is not flat.

Didn’t it just?

Finally some common sense

I doubt it. This has nothing to do with how crimes are recorded, unless in some subtle way I'm unaware of. It's only about how the word woman is understood in the Equality Act 2010.

The word is woman which is legally defined as biological sex.

Unless people think that biology, all of it, is a concept, some do, then it has no relevance. But that's a different matter and honestly don't go there.

Actually two of the three justices who wrote the opinion were women...

Agreed.

It does however very helpfully discuss under data collection that when you form a group called 'women' in which are some biological women (but some are excluded because identity and or certificate) and some biological men (some with a certificate and some without) - you've conflated a very mixed group and it's pretty pointless. It only works on binary sexed basis.

If I exclude a person who appears female from a female-only space and my reason is that they're biologically male, then I can surely say that I'm excluding them because they're male and not on the basis of gender reassignment? I would still have excluded them if they were a male who hadn't undergone gender reassignment, after all.

And that the sky is blue, presumably?

‘This puts me in mind of a practical difficulty. If a transwoman presents as a woman, so that nobody seeing them has any idea of their gender reassignment history, then in practice they won't be excluded’.

This is never going to be an issue because they never pass as women in the cold light of day. Take away their social media filters and the distorted images that they use and they look like what they are - men.

TW can cut off and add what they want and wear what they want but they will never stand or move like women IRL
We know, we always knew, Just because we didn't point and scream "MAN" at them it didn't mean we thought they were women.

Transwomen are not women and never were and never will be

Thats not what the judgement says though at all.

This is wonderful news! Well done & congratulations to FWS & all who supported them 🍾I'm in Ireland so it will be interesting to see if it catches fire over here

Is this the start of reversing all this madness?

If a male person now knows that they are excluded from a female single sex space, are you saying that because they have taken steps to present as a female that you think they will continue to use that space? Even though they have been excluded if the organisation states it clearly?

And by the way, do you think that no woman or girl in the space will be able to correctly sex that male person? What chance do you think there is of that?

Does this mean we are now allowed to correctly gender men pretending to be women on mumsnet and use the correct pronouns for them?

As has been said upthread, this ruling is purely in relation to the Equality Act. It is worth mentioning then, that many of us entered into this debate courtesy of the debacle of All Women Shortlists. An area of single-sex provision specifically mentioned in the Act, and made a complete clusterfuck of by the Labour Party.

There's probably a degree of irony in the fact that had the LP just stuck with women meaning, you know, women, some of this may not have happened, may have happened more slowly, or may have had less support initially. So thanks Labour for being so slapdash with the law and drawing lots of people's attention to it.

It's quite the Black Mirror moment today with all the headlines. Let's remind ourselves it's 2025.

Remembering all those who didn't make it to see this judgement.

Gosh 'anti-trans obsessives' and 'trumpettes' and 'right-whingers'. imagine that

@AnSolas

Why are you claiming that a male placed on a NHS male ward is unsafe?

I'm not. Transwoman on woman's ward = potentially unsafe to the women on that ward.

Transman on man's ward = potentially unsafe for the trans man.

Why do you think that there are no male DV refuges?

Are there? Genuine question because I've never used one and have only really heard of women's refuges.

Why do you think that the lack of provision for males the responsibility of women not the State?

Huh? Are women not involved in running the State? I don't believe the lack of provision for males is the responsibility of women. Ensuring the right provision for everyone is everyone's responsibility. Should an able bodied person no longer champion the rights of disabled people? You're making an argument where there isn't one.

Which rather proves the point that this has become an incredibly toxic arena in which to even attempt to have a reasonable discussion.

I feel relief that men, with a penis, cannot mansplain the definition of a woman to me because they don't like being men. A white person slapping black paint on can't identify as black no matter how emotionally black they feel.

I wonder how long they took to come to the decision but am glad that common sense and science prevailed.

The absolute gaslighting state of this. Do they take us for fools? Why do they think women have had to fucking crowd fund to take this to the SUPREME COURT if they’ve always supported it?

rotten, evil lying bastards

The type of “triumphing” going on in this thread to the detriment of trans people’s safety and wellbeing is exactly what the court itself was very explicit in trying to combat.

Please note paragraph 2 of the judgement :

“It is not the role of the court to adjudicate on… the meanings of gender or sex, nor is it to define the meaning of the word “woman” other than when it is used in the provisions of the EA 2010”.

Thanks @BackToLurk for highlighting that after 14 years of Government the Tories didn't lift a finger to do sny changes.

Just a reminder regarding this Labour party Government.

That would be amazing (and long overdue!)